Laurence Diver

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AI strategy at the FCA • views my own • ivory tower escapee; wrote 'Digisprudence: Code as Law Rebooted' (EUP '22, OA) http://bit.ly/digisprudence; cofounded Journal of Cross-disciplinary Research in Computational Law (CRCL) • some-time dev 💻 • always a European Scot
Personalhttps://laurencediver.net

The @EUCommission presented the EU Tech Sovereignty Package today WITH an Open Source Strategy! 🚀 These plans promote "European open alternatives to non-EU proprietary solutions in critical domains."

It's very encouraging that the EU is choosing #opensource. The EDIC Digital Commons is a great vehicle for for this. I'm also happy with the recognition for the national OSPO's and the official establishment of an EU OSPO network. 🇪🇺

Link to the Open Source Strategy: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/open-source-strategy

So we've been getting rinsed by Palantir... go figure 🤷

Turns out we're quid's in when we junk them from our digital systems.

Now we just need to replicate this across the UK State, getting rid of all the other Big Tech suppliers that over-charge and under-deliver.

Bring on Digital Sovereignty with open source tech 🌱

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2l2j1lxdk5o

#digitalsovereignty #opensource #palantir #bigtech #ukpolitics #ukpol

UK saves 'millions' of pounds by ditching Palantir for refugee system

The government said its in-house IT system was "more flexible" while meeting "high standards" of security.

BBC News
last fm is independent now, which is cool. didn't realize they had previously been owned by cbs 😵‍💫

this little article is sixteen years old today: https://alistapart.com/article/responsive-web-design/

feels deeply weird that it’s that old. the pub date feels like it’s two lifetimes ago and two weeks ago, all at the same time.

Responsive Web Design

Designers have coveted print for its precision layouts, lamenting the varying user contexts on the web that compromise their designs. Ethan Marcotte advocates we shift our design thinking to approp…

A List Apart

My first book, "The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and The War On Democracy," will publish on August 18.

It tells the true story of how a small cult of venture capitalists embraced a grim prophecy in which technology will destroy the United States in the 21st century.

And they worked to make it true, pushing their ideas all the way into the core of the Trump regime.

My book is being published in the USA, UK/Commonwealth, Italy and Poland.

We’ve awarded a €180M tender for sovereign cloud to four European providers.

This enables EU institutions, bodies, offices & agencies (Union entities) to procure sovereign cloud services.

Scaling the use of EU cloud is key to strengthening Europe’s digital sovereignty.

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_26_833

#France Launches Government #Linux Desktop Plan as #WindowsExit Begins

France is transitioning government desktops to Linux, with each ministry required to formalize its implementation plan by autumn 2026.

🇫🇷 🐧 💪

#UnplugTrump #UnplugBigtech #DigitalSovereignty #LeavingMicrosoft #GoFrance

https://linuxiac.com/france-launches-government-linux-desktop-plan-as-windows-exit-begins/

France Launches Government Linux Desktop Plan as Windows Exit Begins

France is transitioning government desktops to Linux, with each ministry required to formalize its implementation plan by autumn 2026.

Linuxiac
CSS is DOOMed! "I built DOOM in CSS. Every wall, floor, barrel, and imp is a <div>, positioned in 3D space using CSS transforms. The game logic runs in JavaScript, but the rendering is entirely #CSS. You can play it right now." https://nielsleenheer.com/articles/2026/css-is-doomed-rendering-doom-in-3d-with-css/

Anthropic's Claude Code's full source code leaked. Claude is seen by many to be the best coding LLM on the market with Anthropic proudly stating that Claude Code itself is mostly written by the LLM.

Now this sounds good as long as nobody can see the code which is quite the trash fire. Detecting "code sentiment" via regular expressions, variable and functions names containing prompt parts trying to influence the bot, a completely intransparent mess of a control flow that makes actual maintenance and debugging functionally impossible and the prompts ... of the prompts. All the begging and pleading to the chatbot not to do this or not to do that or please to do this.

It is fascinating but it is as far away from actual engineering as drunkenly pissing your name in the snow. Dunno what you call the people prompting software at Anthropic but "engineer" is not it.

Now it is fun to look at the currently hyped product striped bare and showing its pathetic quality but that is the future of software if we let those companies continue to undermine every good practice software engineering has tried establishing.

The software we have to use will be bad, insecure, unmaintainable, expensive with nobody having the skills or resources to build something better. As I wrote a few months ago: LLM based software production is equivalent to saying that fast fashion should be the only way to produce clothing. A tragic degeneration of the quality of the artefacts we rely on build for maximum profit on the backs of people in countries from the global majority.